Gentle Gardening - What's Growing Now?

Temperatures have sunk into the 40s overnight a few days this week, which is just cold enough to be pleasant without hurting the plants. Gotta love January in Florida! Here's a peek at what's (still) growing now!

The strawberries Mr. Smarty Pants and I planted a few weeks ago are starting to grow. These ones are June-bearing. I also have some everbearing ones in containers on the porch. Here's another view:



The peas below are still doing quite well. This variety is called "Dark Seeded Early Perfection". I prefer it greatly over the Sugar Snap peas. They stay shorter and seem to be producing more.



You can also see that the basil is starting to fill in, which is great because my jar of dried basil from the summer is just about empty.

The smaller containers on the left side contain sweet pepper sproutlings that I transferred from egg cartons last weekend. They are doing quite well. The bigger terra cotta container in the back contains Mr. Smarty Pants' transplanted marigolds. The one in front of that with zero sprouts so far contains nasturtiums, lovely flowers with an awkward name. I don't usually try to germinate on the front porch, so it's a bit of an experiment, really.



Remember the potato experiment? The flowers are about to bloom, and I am hopeful that we will have potatoes soon!



Finally, here is a glimpse of my countertop full of egg carton seed starters.



There are 10 of them so far. Here's the breakdown:

1- half sage, half cilantro (aiming for 6 of each)
1- Early Girl tomatoes (should have 12 hopefully)
3- sweet peppers (Yes, that will be about 36 more peppers. We love peppers!)
2 - green beans
2- jalapenos (1 tray is for my beloved geek's best friend for a strange experiment)
1- rosemary (I love rosemary and it is tricky to germinate. I hope to get 6 good plants.)

The tomatoes, peppers and green beans are still producing nicely as well. It's a good year to be a gardener.